This experiential learning program is a perfect challenge for students
Fellowship offers collaboration, mentorship, professional development for undergraduate students and faculty
By Rebecca Kirkman on September 6, 2022

When sophomore mass communication major Kendra Bryant transferred to Towson University last spring, she couldn’t wait to get involved in the Writing Center.
“The school I transferred from didn’t have a writing center, but I always told myself I was going to be a writing center tutor in college,” says Bryant, who had experience as a high school peer tutor at the Baltimore City College Writing Center.
“When I found out about Towson’s writing fellows program, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to challenge myself,” she adds.
The Fellowship in Writing, Tutoring and Pedagogy is an experiential learning program that embeds trained student consultants in writing-intensive courses to build a more positive and supportive academic writing experience for their peers.
“Today a bachelor’s degree is extremely important, but students need the skills to be really competitive—for competitive jobs, graduate programs and future leadership,” says Wayne Robertson, director of the TU Writing Center. “This fellowship is exactly the type of program that offers those skills.”
The program is one example of the university’s commitment to offer outstanding student success services and produce graduates prepared for careers or advanced education.
It offers meaningful opportunities for collaboration, mentorship and professional development for fellows in any major or program and the center’s faculty partners. The 14 students accepted into the fellowship program—including Baltimore City College Writing Center alumni and TU sophomores Bryant and Tré Fowlkes—completed a five-week intensive training program over the summer and receive a $2,000 stipend.
The undergraduate fellows provide direct instruction during a variety of classes, teaching topics such as how to write a good introductory paragraph, the best approach to writing for a specific genre or presenting on citing sources or integrating source material.
Faculty–Fellow Partnerships
The writing fellows program also includes professional development for faculty, who must apply to join the cohort on writing pedagogy and attend the Summer Writing Pedagogy Retreat. This summer was the first time the fellows and faculty trained together.
It gave the students additional insight into faculty members’ discipline-specific writing needs.
“We think bringing that awareness to their work in the Writing Center is going to make a very positive difference in how we support student writers at Towson,” says Mairin Barney, assistant director for faculty research at the Writing Center.
Fowlkes, an electronic media and film major, describes the experience to learn alongside faculty at the summer retreat as “groundbreaking.”
“The fellowship has helped me in skills that are beyond things like grammar,” he says, pointing to the program’s focus on inclusion. “[We discussed,] how do we meet students where they’re at? How do we incorporate our own knowledge and our own backgrounds? How do we make everybody feel comfortable and become inclusive as a community?”
A Pathway to TU
After feedback from its student staff, the Writing Center team began thinking about how to partner with high school writing centers to connect with local, skilled high school writers looking at colleges.
Last spring, students from the Baltimore City College Writing Center visited TU for an immersive day where they got to know a university-level writing center, including taking a professional development seminar and asking questions of TU Writing Center tutors.
Bryant encourages her peers and faculty to get involved in the Writing Center. “We need more people to participate in programs like this,” she says. “It’s a great thing to be part of, and it’s a privilege.”
The writing fellows program is supported by the Office of the Provost, the College of Liberal Arts and the Faculty Academic Center of Excellence at Towson (FACET).
Applications for the next writing fellows program will open this spring, but students and faculty can get involved with the Writing Center all year.